


some days are good and some years aren't

by nahco3



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 15:53:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13034469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahco3/pseuds/nahco3
Summary: Tommy wakes up two minutes before his alarm and stares blankly at the ceiling.





	some days are good and some years aren't

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moogle62](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moogle62/gifts).



> happy yuletide! I hope you like this. 
> 
> title is from the song Some Years by Ira Wolf.

Tommy wakes up two minutes before his alarm and stares blankly at the ceiling. It’s 4:58 am and everything is dark and quiet. Tommy imagines he can hear snow falling, the velvet soft muted sound of it, even though he knows rationally he can’t. It’s a good day to stay in bed, burrow under the covers and press his cold nose into someone’s neck. 

He rolls over in bed and grabs his phone. There’s already too many texts, emails, two missed calls–from Ben Rhodes and an assistant producer at CNN–fuck. Not that he expected anything different. He gets dressed in the dark, grabs a PowerBar from the box in the kitchen, pulls his Patriots beanie and his peacoat on and heads to work. 

He triages emails on the Metro and listens to his voicemail as he walks the last blocks to work. The snow falls in big flakes, the street lights reflecting off them so the whole world is lit up with an unreal glow, the sky a grey-pink like the end of the world’s coming. The streets are empty and Tommy wants to stay there, in the quiet cold, until everything inside him is as silent as the world around him.

The West Wing is never empty, but it’s quiet, at least. He’s heading to his office from the caf, coffee in one hand and bagel in the other, when his other phone starts ringing. He hates that fucking ringtone; he has nightmares about it ringing again and again, about sitting in the Sit Room and watching everyone he loves dies while he’s powerless to stop it.

He juggles his coffee cup to the crook of his arm, spilling it on his shirt a little, but he gets to his phone. 

“On my way,” Tommy says, answering without a greeting, turning around and heading down the hallway towards the Situation Room.

\---

He doesn’t get out until late afternoon. The PowerBar is still in his pocket from this morning, thank god, so he eats it on his way to his office. He turns on CNN while he takes off his tie, changes his shirt from his stained one to his clean spare, reminds himself to go to the dry cleaners. He’s down to his last clean office shirt. 

“Where have you been?” Favs asks from the door, and Tommy startles in irrepressible animal terror. 

“Fuck,” Tommy says, “don’t do that, dude.” 

“Sorry,” Favs says. Tommy sits at his desk, opening up his laptop. God, fuck, he can’t do this. He looks up at Favs: his coat hanging open, a scarf draped around his neck, cup of coffee in one hand and his messenger bag over his shoulder, gap-toothed smile and, somehow, a lingering tan. He looks the way he’s supposed to. 

“Can I have your coffee?” Tommy asks. 

“Of course,” Favs says. “It has that hazelnut stuff in it, though.”

“Don’t care,” Tommy says, taking it. It’s lukewarm and too sweet, but he gulps it down, willing his brain to start working. “You’re the best, thanks man.”

“I was just heading out to get ready,” Favs says, “I was hoping you could come with, but.” He looks around Tommy’s office and shrugs. “Maybe not?”

“Fuck. Sorry,” Tommy says. “I can’t.” He rubs his hand over his eyes. “Sorry I’m such a shitty friend.”

“Tommy,” Favs says. “You were in the _Situation Room_ all day. I can spike hot chocolate and hang up mistletoe or whatever else Lovett wants me to do on my own, it’s really cool.” 

“Tell Lovett I’m sorry,” Tommy says. He takes another sip of Favs’ terrible coffee to hide everything he can.

“Is there anything you want me to get from the liquor store?” Favs asks.

“Arsenic,” Tommy says. Favs’ face falls at that. 

“Tommy–” he starts, coming around Tommy’s desk.

“Just some Sam Adams or something,” Tommy says. “Don’t worry about it.” He looks up at Favs, who is making one of his sad, helpless faces, like a puppy that’s trying to talk. “Seriously, don’t worry.” 

“I just, you know, after, uh, this year–” 

“Please,” Tommy says, breaking eye contact. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just finish up a few emails and be there before the party even starts.” 

“Cool,” Favs says, clapping Tommy on the shoulder. “Take care. Don’t work too hard.” 

“Yeah,” Tommy says, as Favs closes the door behind him. Then he opens up his email, ignoring the mindless panic twisting his gut and grabbing for his heart.

\---

Around nine, his personal phone starts buzzing. He looks up from the statement he’s trying to write–he’s been staring at same paragraph for too long, trying to find the words he needs in the exhausted mess of his mind.

There’s a string of new texts from Lovett. Tommy hates opening his phone, seeing the texts he’s too much of a coward to open: from his mom, his step-mom, his sister. The one voicemail from his dad he hasn’t listened to yet. He’s pathetic. 

He opens the texts from Lovett; what the fuck does it matter. He’s only hurting himself. 

They come in quickly; his phone buzzing urgently in his hand even as he’s reading. 

_You coming?_

_Favs says you’re still at work but that CANT be true_

_Because I came all the way from LA to celebrate hannukah with you two idiot goyim_

_I could be eating latkes off of an American apparel models and right now_

_*abs_

_And you flaked last night too not cute tommy not cute_

Tommy takes a deep breath and lets it out, shaky. There’s no reason the texts should make him feel so bad. No reason but his usual stupidity, at least. Lovett doesn’t–Tommy’s just another of his ex-co-workers, he needs to remember that, he needs to remember that Lovett’s probably getting drunk right now, has sent someone to get him another drink and is texting Tommy just to look busy between conversations. 

_Sorry_ Tommy texts back. _work._

_You’re anti-semitic_ Lovett texts back. _even Dan’s here. You have no excuse._

Tommy turns his phone over and puts it on silent. He can’t explain to Lovett–who makes everything look easy, who could spend twenty-two hours on Grindr, write a perfect first draft and go sleep with some cultural attaché from Luxembourg or something–how he can’t think anymore, his mind moving too slow, oily with fear. Every word is the wrong one. He doesn’t want to be here in his windowless office giving himself a migraine, but he can’t picture himself in the warm light of Favs’ apartment either, trying to remember how to laugh at jokes, how to be a person around Lovett again. 

He keeps writing, turns up CNN two clicks to drown out his thoughts. He drinks the last dredges of Favs’ coffee, long cold and disgusting, but it doesn’t wake him up any. He just needs one night of uninterrupted sleep; he just needs to nap for 15 minutes and he’ll be ok. 

He shuts his laptop. His phone says it’s 11:42. There’s another twenty texts from Lovett. Tommy gets the empty pressure behind his eyes that he’s gotten used to, since his dad: where tears that won’t come should be. He pillows his head on his desk. He just needs a little sleep. 

\---

Tommy wakes up two minutes before his alarm and stares blankly at the ceiling. For a second he feels nothing but tired and then panic spikes through him, brutally. He sits up in bed. It’s 4:58. How did he sleep for so long, he just meant to nap for half an hour at his desk, his _desk_ , what the fuck, how did he get home. He grabs for his phone. 

There are a bunch of texts and emails, two missed calls–from Ben Rhodes and an assistant producer at CNN. He opens the texts. None of them are from Lovett or Favs. The emails are the same ones as he got yesterday, like there’s some sort of glitch in his email. He listens to the first voicemail; from Ben. It’s about the fuck-up he spent all day yesterday on. 

He can’t calm down. He gets up and turns on the light. His shirt and tie for the day are laid out. It’s the shirt he spilled coffee on yesterday. There’s no stain.

He sits on the floor. The date on his phone. December 16. Yesterday. 

“Don’t have a panic attack,” Tommy says. It doesn’t help. It never helps. He’s. He loses control of his breathing, his heart beat. His hands are shaking.

He had a dream, a work dream like he sometimes has, that’s all. A dream where he exactly predicted the emails he got. He had a stroke, like Dan. He has brain cancer. He’s having a psychotic break. God.

He can barely unlock his phone, make it to his contacts. Someone drugged him and is trying to extract information. He’s going to die. He’s already dead and stuck in a shitty afterlife where he can’t even see his dad. Finally, his mom picks up.

“Tommy?” she sounds half-asleep, a tremor in her voice he’s too used to hearing. “Are you ok?”

“Mom,” Tommy says, ashamed of the relief he feels. “Mom. What day is today?”

He can hear her sitting up, can picture her putting on her glasses and pushing her hair out of her face. 

“Friday, the sixteenth. Tommy, sweetheart, where are you?”

“I’m in my apartment, Mom, I’m fine.” He gives a weak laugh, trying to will himself back under control. “Just had a long day at work yesterday.”

“Tommy,” his mom says. “I’m worried about you.”

Tommy feels a horrible spasm of guilt. Bad enough that he’s losing it, but this shouldn’t—this is hard enough for her without him making it worse. “I’m really fine Mom. It’s just work.”

“I know you and your sister don’t like to confide in me,” she says, slow and sad. He shuts his eyes. “But I hope you’re talking to someone.”

“Mom,” he says. “There’s nothing to talk about. It’s just work, that’s all.” He clenches his fist until his nails bite into his palm.

“What about your friend who moved to LA, Jonathan? At your father’s funeral,” she pauses and collects herself and Tommy draws in one jagged breath after another, “he was so kind.” 

“Mom,” Tommy says, choked off, and then, like clockwork, the same time as yesterday, his encrypted phone rings. “I have to go.”

“Oh honey,” his mom says. “Come home for a Christmas if you can. I love you.”

“Love you,” Tommy says and hangs up, feeling worse than ever. He gives himself one breath before he answers his other phone.

“It’s Tommy, sir. I’m coming in right now.”

\---

This iteration of the Sit Room is even worse than yesterday. He knows what’s coming, every round of mortar fire, but he can’t say anything. What would he say? _Sorry Mr. President, I’m having a mental breakdown but if we just moved our troops a few klicks north, some civilians are going to live?_ That would go over well. So he stays quiet, like the coward he is.

When he’s dismissed from the Sit Room finally, told to go write up the President’s statement–again, the same fucking thing all over again–he makes it to the bathroom next to his office before he throws up in the sink, just bile and coffee. He can’t meet his own eyes in the mirror as he rinses his mouth out.

Favs is waiting in his office for him, in the same coat, holding his terrible too-sweet coffee.

“Jesus, Tommy,” he says. “Long day?”

“You have no idea,” Tommy says. Then something occurs to him, hope rising. Maybe he isn’t alone in this, whatever this is. Maybe he isn’t trapped completely in his own head. “Today hasn’t. Been weird for you?” 

“Weird how?” Favs asks. He’s looking at Tommy more carefully now, running his hand through his hair the way he does when he’s worried.

“Like you’ve done it before, all of it?” Favs looks blank, and Tommy feels himself flush. “Never mind, dumb thought.” 

Favs lets out a long slow breath. “How much work do you have left?” 

The thought makes Tommy want to cry, the sheer Sisyphean bullshit that he has to do again and again, the half lies he has to keep telling. “Fuck.”

“That’s it,” Favs says. “You can finish whatever you need to finish on my couch and then take a nap.” 

“I–” Tommy begins. The fucking party. He can’t go to the party today, he can’t see Lovett, on this day of all days. 

Favs puts a hand on Tommy’s back. “Come on, bud,” he says. “Don’t pull a Dan on me, ok? You’re coming with me.” It’s Favs, so even the ultimatum sounds a little tentative. Tommy figures he can work for a few hours and then dip out once people start showing up, find somewhere to drink alone. If tomorrow’s never coming, he might as well black it out. 

They take a cab to Favs’, which is insane, like Tommy is some kind of invalid. Tommy tries to write his statement on his phone and ignore the looks Favs is giving him. He’s so tired, he wants to fall asleep right there, rocked to sleep by the cab, DC moving by them like a snowglobe.

Favs’ apartment is half-decorated–a deranged combination of red and green garlands and strands of lights shaped like dreidels. Lovett is standing on a chair under the door from the living room to the kitchen, trying to tape a small branch to the top of the door frame. His hands are over his head and his shirt has ridden up so that Tommy can see the white of his back, the dimples at the base of his spine. 

“Can you help me with this?” Lovett asks, without turning around. “I’m too short to deal with your bullshit high ceilings.” 

“Sure,” Favs says, shooing Lovett of the chair and taking his place. Lovett turns, tugging his shirt over his stomach, and starts when he sees Tommy.

“Favs, you were supposed to keep all our handsome friends out until I’ve put on my shapewear,” Lovett says, his eyes still on Tommy. Tommy blushes without knowing why, really. 

“You do know mistletoe is a specific plant?” Tommy says. “Not just a branch you ripped off the bush outside.”

“Fuck off,” Lovett says. “Fucking Christmas fascist over here. Do you want some piggy pudding too?”

“Figgy pudding,” Tommy corrects, mindlessly and Lovett throws his hands up in the air. 

“Everyone’s a critic! Make yourself useful,” Lovett says, pushing past Tommy to go do god knows what else. 

“Missed you too Lovett,” Tommy says, aiming for a joke but missing. Lovett turns back towards Tommy, eyes narrowed. Tommy lets himself look, because what’s the fucking point. He can’t think anymore, running on fear and adrenaline, but even those are fading to a familiar hopelessness. 

Lovett’s in a shirt covered in the digits of pi, a pair of sweatpants that are a little too small for him. His hair is longer than it was, his cheeks a little rounder. His mouth is the same, set at some unreadable angle. His arms are crossed and Tommy wants to touch the soft pale skin of his biceps. 

“Too bad you couldn’t come out with us last night, then,” Lovett says, saccharine, and Tommy blanches, disoriented in time, because Lovett can’t mean–only he remembers–then he realizes he was supposed to meet Lovett at the airport with Favs, Thursday night. 

“Tommy has to do actual work,” Favs says, getting off the chair, the greenery hung. 

“As opposed to me?” Lovett says, arch. Tommy wants to curl in on himself. 

“You know I didn’t mean that,” Favs says. 

“No,” Tommy says, looking down. “It was just.” He shakes his head. It doesn’t matter, just another thing he can’t talk about. “I’m sorry.” 

“You can work in my bedroom,” Favs says. 

“Don’t you mean my bedroom?” Lovett says. “Tommy, Favs gave me his bedroom because he’s been spending nights with his _child bride_ in her _dorm room._ ”

“Shut up, Lovett,” Tommy says. He turns to Favs. “Thanks, man.”

“No worries,” Favs says. They share a look Tommy remembers from right before Lovett left D.C., Favs apologizing for Lovett, Tommy shrugging it off because it’s already forgiven, because he already knows how Lovett feels about him. 

He tries to work, but his emotions have finally burned through him, leaving him hollowed out. Outside he can hear Lovett ordering Favs around while Favs sings Christmas carols. The room is warm and dark. He pulls off his pants, takes off his tie and his collared shirt and crawls into bed. The pillows smell like Lovett. He gives in and sleeps. 

\---

He wakes up with a start in his own room, still disoriented by sleep, and grabs for his phone. 4:58, December 16. He looks up at the ceiling and gives himself until his alarm goes off to feel the heavy weight of despair in his bones. Then he gets out of bed and gets dressed, checks the knot of his tie in the mirror. Today, he’s going to be perfect.

He makes it through the Sit Room, lies his way through his conversation with Jon with ease, sits down and answers his emails and writes his statement. It’s easy now, the third time around. He leaves work just after ten, texts Lovett _party still happening?_

 _Come by and see_ , Lovett responds, so Tommy stops at a liquor store and gets a handle of nice vodka, crunches through the snow to Favs’ apartment, stopping to look at his reflection in a car window. He looks tired, too serious, the same as always.

The party is loud, lit up. Lovett found a Christmas tree somewhere. Favs is wearing a Santa hat and talking to his new girlfriend, Emily. Tommy waves to them on his way to the kitchen, which is where Lovett usually is, at parties. He’s managed to fix a normal expression on his face. Today. Today he’s done everything he was supposed to do, checked every box. He’ll find Lovett and apologize and then–go home and it’ll be over.

Lovett’s in the kitchen, letting some guy press him up against the cabinets, shove a thigh between his legs. The sight of it flows like ice water through Tommy, from his heart out. He puts the vodka down, blind, and goes back out in the living room. It’s too hot, the music too loud. Favs comes over and puts a hand on his shoulder, says something. It doesn’t matter. What did Tommy expect, anyway? 

“I’m gotta pee,” he tells Favs, maybe cutting him off mid-sentence. He has to–he has to get away. There’s a girl crying in the bathroom, the door open, another girl handing her toilet paper. 

“Fuck him, you know?” she’s saying, over and over. “You’re so much better.” Tommy doesn’t recognize either of them. He keeps going, down the hallway and out the back door, into the night. 

He can see his breath. The snow’s stopped at last. He walks, aimless, towards the Mall, looking at the lit-up Christmas trees in people’s windows, the snowmen built in the postage-stamp front yards, down the middle of wide avenues, past the darkened government buildings. The Mall’s empty, a couple of stars peeking through the clouds. Tommy sits on a bench and waits for midnight to come and take everything away. 

He wakes up in his bed, again and again and again. He goes to work, starts offering suggestions in the Sit Room, pours cream into his coffee and gets good at avoiding Favs. One day he calls up an executive producer at Fox just to tell them to go fuck themselves, in detail. One day Obama calls him into the Oval, late at night, tells Tommy he appreciates how hard he’s been working, that he had some really good insight today. Tommy stands there and lets his eyes go unfocused so he doesn’t lose it, put his head on his president’s shoulder and sob.

He calls his mom every other day. They have the same conversation over and over until it breaks his heart, until he can’t do it anymore. He comes home and drinks alone. He goes out to bars and picks up–a girl, a guy–consultants and grad students who are impressed by his job or who don’t want to hear him talk, just want him to shut up and fuck them. 

One night he ends up back at Favs’ apartment. It’s almost midnight, the moonlight shining down. He can hear the music spilling out, muted. It reminds him of college. 

Lovett comes out, in an ugly Hanukkah sweater, shivering on the stoop and lighting a cigarette. 

“Hey,” Tommy says. 

“What the fuck, you fucking serial killer,” Lovett says, huddling deeper into himself. 

“Do you want my coat?” Tommy asks, already unbuttoning it. Lovett nods and Tommy pulls his coat off. Lovett holds his arms out, like he’s a duke or a kindergartener, and Tommy puts the coat on him, smoothing the collar down carefully, his hands just brushing the back of Lovett’s neck.

“Stop smoking,” Tommy says. 

“I’m a neurotic mess,” Lovett says, “don’t tell me what self-destructive habits I can’t have. Plus, it makes me eat less.” 

“For fuck’s sake, Jon,” Tommy says, grabbing his wrist, pulling the cigarette away from his mouth. “Can you just. Please.” 

Lovett drops the cigarette and stamps it out. “I never knew you cared,” he says, his voice high and self-mocking. 

“Of course I care,” Tommy chokes out.

“Come inside,” Lovett says. “Favs is trying to make me play beer pong.” 

“Yeah,” Tommy says. His coat hangs long on Lovett, hanging over his hands, the hem past his knees. His eyes are bright in the moonlight, his cheeks red with cold. “Yeah.”

Lovett is just through the door, Tommy on his heels, when the world resets. 

\---

Tommy wakes up in his room. He looks over. It’s 4:58, again. He turns off his phone and then, after thinking about it for a little, turns off his encrypted phone too. He goes back to sleep. 

When he wakes up again his room is bright with pale winter sunshine. He turns on his personal phone. It’s just after eleven in the morning on the 16th. Rhodes has called him ten times. 

Tommy goes for a run along the river, the cold slapping his cheeks red. He wonders, idly, what would happen if he jumped in. Would he be allowed to die, or would today loop back all over again? The snow is still falling, slower now, and sky is grey, the water greyer. 

He runs to Favs’ apartment and rings the doorbell, once, twice, ten times. He thinks about going to get a snowball to throw it at Favs’ window, and the thought makes him laugh hysterically. 

Lovett comes to the door. He’s wearing what he was wearing–yesterday, the other today, every day, Tommy doesn’t know. 

“Are you having some kind of nervous breakdown?” Lovett asks. 

“Yes,” Tommy says, still laughing. He has to lean against the wall of Favs’ apartment. He can’t stand. “Can I come in?”

\---

Lovett makes them cheerios with milk and coffee with whiskey. 

“So are we talking about this?” Lovett asks. “Because Favs has texted me like nine times asking if you’re returning my calls.”

“I left my phone at home,” Tommy says, taking a big sip of coffee. It burns going down. Lovett is eating his cheerios, periodically wiping milk off his face with the back of his hand. 

“I’m sorry about last night,” Tommy says. “There was something horrible happening in Morocco.” 

“Are you supposed to tell me that?” Lovett asks, looking impressed despite himself. 

“No,” Tommy says. “But I’m still sorry. I should have been there.”

“It’s fine,” Lovett says, “I get that nothing’s more important than that job for you.” 

Tommy takes another drink of his coffee and then another. “I mean, what else is there,” he says, looking down at the table. He doesn’t want to think about it. He might as well have thrown himself into the Potomac, if tomorrow he has to wake up and face the consequences of today. He can feel Lovett’s eyes on him, warm. When he looks up, Lovett’s looking back at him. His morning stubble looks good. He always looks good. 

“What are you going to do today?” Tommy asks.

“I need to buy some shit for the party,” Lovett says. “Favs said he looked for, quote, ‘those Jewish chocolate coins,’ end quote, but couldn’t find them, so I’m on a gelt quest.” He sighs. “I don’t know, like, we’re doing this whole big thing but it kind of feels like. Whatever.” 

Tommy finishes his coffee. His cereal is a mushy mess in front of him. “Like your life is falling apart and everything is pointless bullshit?”

Lovett snort-laughs into his coffee. “Where’d my chipper WASP go?” 

Tommy shrugs. “Want to get high?” 

\--- 

They end up sprawled on Favs’ couch after stealing Favs’ weed, Lovett half in Tommy’s lap. They’re eating some depressing gluten-free chips that Favs had in his pantry. 

“We can’t talk about work,” Lovett is saying, licking his fingers. “Because then we’ll just get more depressed.” 

“Ok,” Tommy says. He runs his fingers through Lovett’s hair. It feels as nice as he’s always imagined it would. The curls wrap around his fingers a little bit. He does it again and again. 

“I might get a dog,” Lovett says. He tips his head back and Tommy pushes the hair away from his forehead. His skin is so soft. Tommy wants to kiss his forehead. He’s pretty sure he learned sometime that your lips have more nerve endings than your fingers. It would feel good if they touched Lovett. 

He brings his other hand around to rest of Lovett’s stomach. His shirt is worn. It reminds Tommy of the old shirts of his dad’s that he used to sleep in, for years and years, until there were holes in them and his mom had to throw them out. Lovett leans further back against him. He’s still saying something about a dog or LA or something. Tommy’s tuned it out. One of his hands is stroking down from the side of Lovett’s head to his neck, and his other hand has found its way under Lovett’s shirt. Lovett’s belly is soft and warm, the jut of his hipbones tantalizing. 

“Tommy?” Lovett says. 

“I want to fuck you,” Tommy says, into Lovett’s hair. “Please. Can we.” 

Lovett makes a strangled noise. “Are you high? Fuck, you are, you literally are.” 

“Mmm,” Tommy says, rolling his hips up against Lovett. “Or I could blow you. That would be nice.” 

“Tommy, fuck,” Lovett pushes his hips back. Tommy works his hand down from Lovett’s stomach to under his sweatpants. Lovett’s hard and Tommy loves the feeling of Lovett’s dick in his hand, the scent of his hair. Lovett groans and Tommy leans down to bite at his neck. 

“I’ve been in love with you since like 2009,” Tommy says into the curve of Lovett’s neck. Why the fuck not. 

He can feel Lovett start under his hands and he lets go. Lovett turns over so he’s facing Tommy, kneeling between Tommy’s legs. 

“What,” Lovett says. He reaches up and fixes Tommy’s hair for no reason Tommy can tell, his eyes fixed on a spot just above Tommy’s head.

“You could fuck me if you wanted,” Tommy says. “I could eat you out. Like. It’s all on the table.”

Lovett’s hands are shaking just a little bit and he brings them down to rest on Tommy’s shoulders. “You can’t just say things like that to people,” he says, very quietly. “Someone might take you up on it.” 

Tommy just tips his head back, lets Lovett kiss him, deep.

They end up in Favs’–in Lovett’s–bed. Tommy can’t get it together enough to stick with a plan, keeps getting distracted by Lovett’s mouth and his hands, the notches of his spine. 

“Jon,” Tommy says, into the soft space between Lovett’s shoulders. “Jon, can you just.” He’s desperate, skin-to-skin with Lovett, but it’s not enough. There’s no way to hold him tight enough to keep him safe, to keep him with Tommy. “Can you talk.” 

“Yeah,” Lovett says, his voice a little shaky. “Yeah, Tommy, god.” Tommy sits back on his heels and runs his hands down Lovett’s back, spanning his hips, letting his thumbs dip into the dimples he saw all those days before. Tommy bends down, kisses them both and Lovett makes a cut-off noise, rolls his hips. Tommy moves his hands downward, over the curve of Lovett’s ass, digging his hands in just a little. 

“How are you real,” Lovett says. Tommy bites down on the curve of Lovett’s ass in response, desire curling hot through him. He leans back just a little to nuzzle where he bit and then grabs Lovett’s hips for real, flips him over. 

“God,” Lovett says. “You’ve been holding out on me.” Tommy pushes himself up to kiss Lovett and loses himself to it all over again, to Lovett’s plush lip between his teeth and Lovett’s hair between his fingers. To the brush of his eyelashes and the way their noses rub together when they pull back to breathe. Tommy’s rubbing his dick against Lovett’s thigh, shameless. Lovett moans into his mouth when Tommy brings a hand down to Lovett’s dick, which makes him roll his hips again and again, wanton.

“God, Tommy,” Lovett says and Tommy has to pull his hand back up to cup Lovett’s face with both hands, take a second to break the kiss and just rest his forehead against Lovett’s.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s just. A lot.”

“Yeah,” Lovett says, wiggling down to kiss the corner of Tommy’s mouth. “For me, too.” 

“Ok,” Tommy says. “Ok.” Lovett puts one of his hands over Tommy’s, moves it from his own cheek to his mouth. He kisses Tommy’s palm, the tips of his fingers, and then takes them into his mouth.

“Jon,” Tommy says, lost to the smooth slide of it. Lovett’s eyes are wide, his pupils blown and Tommy fucks his fingers in and out, just to watch Lovett’s lips part. 

Finally, he pulls his fingers away, brings his hand back down between them. Lovett rolls over on top of him, locking them in another messy kiss, his arms around Tommy’s neck. Tommy takes both their dicks in his hand, working them together. He isn’t going to last, every piece of himself, of his mind and his body, given over to Lovett. It feels too good. Above him, Lovett loses the kiss, his body tensing and his lips going slack against Tommy’s. Tommy feels Lovett’s come on his hand and his stomach and that’s it, he’s gone.

When he comes back to himself, Lovett’s sitting up next to him in bed, one hand in Tommy’s hair. He opens his eyes, blearily. 

“Get some sleep,” Lovett says. 

“Wake me up for the party,” Tommy says, rolling over to press his face into Lovett’s thigh. “And can you tell Favs–” 

“I’ll tell Favs to tell everyone at work there was a death in the family.” Lovett pats the top of his head. “Don’t worry.”

“Ha ha,” Tommy says. “Just have him try not to get me fired. Not that it matters.” 

Lovett stills his hand and then, carefully, grabs Tommy’s shoulder, shaking Tommy so he opens his eyes and faces Lovett. 

“That job is killing you,” Lovett says, and then kisses Tommy, quick, like he regrets the sincerity. “Sleep. I already have your name on my dance card for the quadrille and for slap cup.” 

“Love you,” Tommy says, already sliding under, just in case it’s the last time he gets to say it. 

\---

When Lovett shakes him awake he can hear music through the walls, the blurred laughter and chatter of a party. 

“Come on sleepy,” Lovett says, “look alive.” 

Tommy stretches. The bed’s warm, smells like the two of them. He doesn’t bother to open his eyes, just presses himself against Lovett. 

“Up,” Lovett says, pulling back the covers. 

“You’re a nightmare,” Tommy says, finally opening his eyes. Lovett’s there, beaming down at him in his stupid ugly sweater. Tommy sits up just enough to kiss Lovett once and then again and again. He tastes like peppermint schnapps. 

“Get dressed,” Lovett says, breaking the kiss. 

“In what?” Tommy asks. He has no idea where his clothes are. The sheets are so warm and so soft and so is Lovett. It seems cruel that he’d have to leave this, have it pulled away from him.

“Put on one of Favs’ slutty henleys or something. I want to make all the other gays jealous.” 

Tommy laughs and goes to Favs’ dresser, pulling on the first thing he finds, a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and a pair of sweats. None of Favs’ jeans would fit over his ass.

“You’ll do,” Lovett says, his eyes dark. Tommy grabs his hand and pulls him out into the hall, kisses him against the wall. In the bathroom, the crying girl is fixing her makeup while her friend hands her a Solo cup full of wine. 

They make it into the living room eventually. Tommy goes to get them both drinks, pausing to kiss Lovett under the shitty branch that’s taped to the door frame, once, twice. 

“Um,” Favs says. “Hey guys.”

Lovett pulls back from Tommy, just an inch. “We fucked in your bed. Happy Hanukkah.”

Favs goes bright red and Tommy does too. Lovett laughs and laughs. “Your faces! Oh my god, your faces! My handsome boys.” Tommy has to pull Lovett out of the door and into the kitchen, so that Lovett can double all the way over, delighted by himself. 

Favs hands Tommy a beer. “You didn’t, did you?”

“Sorry,” Tommy says. “This hasn’t been my best day.” Favs rolls his eyes and taps his beer can against Tommy’s.

“Cheers, asshole,” he says, grinning his gap-toothed grin. 

“Happy Hanukkah,” Tommy says, and Lovett starts laughing again, uncontrollable. 

“You have to move to LA,” Lovett says, when he’s recovered. “Both of you. It sucks without you.” Tommy looks over at Lovett and sees the microwave clock behind him. 11:58. He pulls Lovett in close to him, a hand flat against the skin of Lovett’s back, tries to ignore his rising panic. He’s lost worse than this before and survived. 

“What would we even do?” Favs asks. “You have the sitcom market pretty much cornered.”

“Not for much longer,” Lovett says, his voice sharp. “Whatever. I’m on to bigger and better things.”

“We could do communications,” Favs says, “but it seems like–” 

“Yeah, like, what compares to having the President of the fucking United States read what you wrote,” Lovett lets out a long sigh. “What do you think, Tommy? You’re the strategist. What should we do?”

Tommy looks away from the clock, down at Lovett, a little sweaty and a little drunk, a hickey high on his neck from Tommy’s mouth, and then over at Favs, in a Christmas sweater his mom probably bought for him, his open smile and bright eyes. It’s impossible, the gratitude he feels, the love, bright and high in his chest, suffusing his whole body. 

“Nothing too serious,” Tommy says, “but something real, you know?” 

“Wow, what vision,” Lovett says, sarcastic, but he squeezes Tommy’s waist as he says it. Tommy squeezes him back. 

“I like it,” Favs says. “I’ll drink to it.”

“You’ll drink to anything,” Lovett says, but he’s raising his solo cup, and Tommy raises his beer. 

“The future,” Favs says, and they all drink. Behind them, the clock clicks over to a new day.

**Author's Note:**

> a heartfelt thanks to my amazing beta readers, without whom this would be much worse.


End file.
